


narrative of the blues

by tmtlp



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Character Study, Dialogue Light, Fluff, HYPERBOLIC METAPHORS, Internal Monologue, M/M, Metaphors, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, changbin as the ocean, is it a character study??? idk, seungmin as the sky, sky and sea imagery, so many kissing, this is me projecting my love for science to changbin, this is monologue heavy !
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27185872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmtlp/pseuds/tmtlp
Summary: "Kiss me."The sea wants to rise, and the sky wants to sink. All of its life, the sea wished for wings while the sky wished for fins.None of them ever gets it.Instead, they were given a line.
Relationships: Kim Seungmin/Seo Changbin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	narrative of the blues

_excerpts of chapter 11, section 22: In-between horizon_

  
  


**_11.22.01 :_ ** **_  
_ ** **_ANALOGOUS_ **

  
  


“Kiss me.”  
  
  
The tides rise as though the moon had turned full, it hasn’t. Perhaps the waves just want a brief graze from the sky.  
  
  
Seungmin smiles, his fingers on Changbin’s skin walking down the warm pathway on his arm. It’s not entirely visible but the moon tilts in his eyes, Changbin had learned.  
  
  
“Hm? What was that?”  
  
_  
Jackass,_ Changbin thinks. There was no way that wasn’t audible.  
  
  
Changbin breathes, “I hate you,” there’s a grin he’s repressing, Changbin’s lying if he claims he’s not enjoying their banter.  
  
  
Seungmin laughs softly, it’s the kind—Changbin had also learned—that makes you want to hand him over the universe and its entirety as if it’s the most mundane thing to do. Changbin had read too many hyperbolic writings to know that it is such _a-lovesick-mundane saying_ that no mundanes had ever accomplished.  
  
  
Seungmin grins as he leans his body closer to Changbin, _warm_.  
  
  
“Likewise,” Seungmin replies, the crescent moons still hanging inside his eyes.  
  
  
Changbin _is_ lovesick, but he knows he doesn’t need to hand over Seungmin the entire universe since he _is_ already _one_.  
  
  
(Changbin had read too many hyperbolic writings and now he’s transforming into one.)  
  
_  
That’s not hyperbolic_ , Changbin thought.  
  
  
He recalls the day they went on a date to a planetarium Seungmin had been keeping his eyes on, Changbin found it amusing that Seungmin kept tabs on stuff like this, ( _“I mean, you like ‘space stuff’ and it’s beautiful, plus we’re learning something too. Nothing to lose here.” Seungmin stated.)_ Changbin did not say anything then, kind of touched Seungmin listed him liking ‘space stuff’ as the reason. He silently agreed and because Seungmin had fueled the suggestion, he wants to go too now. _AND_. And maybe because he wants to test _his hypothesis_.  
  
  
One step inside the dimmed space, a switch turned on and his theory was right.  
  
  
The stars-littered sky above their heads altered its way to Seungmin’s eyes. Trapping their gleaming self inside the convex lenses, making themselves float on the arched river. _Sure_ , _it’s the light reflecting itself_ — _blah_ — _blah_ — _!_ Changbin knows that, scientifically that is how it goes, but he is lovesick(!) and now gravity doesn’t seem like 9,807 m/s² but rather the force of his mass and Seungmin’s pulling each other to foreclose the distance present between them.  
  
  
(Changbin had read too many _scientific_ hyperbolic writings and now he’s transforming into one.)  
  
  
Changbin hypothesized that Kim Seungmin is the universe; the skies. He’s been collecting his empirical data to prove this. ~~_And yes, it is hyperbolic._~~ Changbin is a man of evidence.  
  
  
( _“Oh, Min, look at this?” Changbin points to a screen displaying the sentence: ‘Select Your Birth Date’, Seungmin trails behind slowly, they’re walking around the exhibition area._ _  
__  
__  
“What is it?” Changbin shrugs, observing the caption placed beside the screen while Seungmin went in and punched his birth date in._ _  
__  
__  
“Oh, it’s showing what the Hubble telescope saw on your birthday,” Changbin says right when the younger clicks ‘Submit’, the screen loads before showing an image of so many twinkling dots on a seemingly dark sky._ _  
__  
__  
“That’s pretty,” Changbin was the first to speak up._ _  
__  
__  
“GOODS?” Seungmin reads out._ _  
__  
__  
“Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey,” Changbin answers without hesitation, he knew exactly what that is, a galaxy census of the southern field. He believes he’d read it somewhere. “Min, this is big.”_ _  
__  
__  
Seungmin shrugs, definitely not getting the context. “The entire cosmic history is probably in this mosaic picture,” Changbin explains, scrolling down the info about the picture._ _  
__  
__  
Another evidence to pocket for his theory.)_  
  
  
You see, Changbin had found way too many things that he even forgot what he had experienced along the way.  
  
  
Kim Seungmin just happens to be so many things for Seo Changbin, so projecting his _experience of the ‘Seungmin data_ ’ onto phrases… that’s tough.  
  
  
Seungmin twinkles like the stars, a calming presence amongst the obscure water drowning you. He listens and holds your hand, your pain—all your wounds that are open as he listens to each one and bears them as if it was his own pain.  
  
  
(As Changbin was thinking, Seungmin notices him zoning out and scoots closer. Changbin blinks and Seungmin smiles, bright. _Cute_.)  
  
  
Seungmin’s hugs—as experienced by Changbin—feel like a blanket of galaxy wrapped around you; carrying your body up into the intergalactic dust, navigating your senses to remain conscious but your mind to slowly stray away.  
  
_  
It does not seem probable to happen_ , Changbin criticizes his own thought, _but that probably means you haven’t been hugged by Kim Seungmin to understand the feeling._ (Jackass.)  
  
  
  
(“Hyung? You there?”)  
  
  
  
His voice. If one could visualize sound waves with naked eyes, Seungmin’s would perhaps be small glitters floating in the sky, creating a soft cadence that every melody in Changbin’s songs wished they could embody.  
  
  
  
(“You’re drifting,” Seungmin’s hand now draws circles on his back. “What are you thinking?”)  
  
  
  
Changbin sighs without knowing, _I am thinking about you and I don’t think you’re aware of the fire you light inside myself. Of your pyrotechnic tips touching my soul._  
  
  
Seungmin’s touch(!!!), _it’s warm,_ warmer than the wildfires left across the evening sky. Whenever his skin meets Seungmin’s, his soul felt like it’s stretched into a constellation, electrifying beyond imagination and if you happen to get struck, it’d taste like an alignment of cold savory-sweet flavor despite the inferno rhythmically dancing all over you, their flames flaring up without missing a pulse.  
  
  
A touch gifted from the Sun, through the sky for the mortals.  
  
_  
Now if that doesn’t make sense to you, it’s just because you haven’t experienced nor observed it for your senses to know the feelings, as stated before. Simple._  
  
  
There’s just too much to uncover and unpile if you ask Changbin to describe Kim Seungmin. He’s just so many things Changbin had ever known and learned, yet he keeps expanding. This leaves Changbin an obvious matter: he’ll have to keep learning forever. Forever, since he wants to grasp every single concept there is about Seungmin. And adds in his ‘ _Seungmin data’_ to maybe publish a journal about his empirical hypothesis one day.  
  
  
  
(Seungmin waves his hand in front of Changbin’s face. No reaction.)  
  
  
  
Changbin settled that Kim Seungmin is the universe; the skies. Carrying all of those things Changbin had elaborated. It exists and delivers an abundance of meaning in many contexts. Also, it is Seungmin’s nickname! _As if it was made for him_ , Changbin smiles unconsciously and mutters, “Sky.”  
  
  
Like how the sky has layers, Seungmin has his too; an endless layer that’s stained with shades of blue. _Blue_. Seungmin is wearing his blue hoodie right now. Everything just connects seamlessly like how the stars were linked to form an asterism. _Changbin is a man of evidence._  
  
  
“Hyung?”  
  
  
That’s when he was pulled back in orbit, “Yes?”  
  
  
Indeed, blue was made for him.  
  
  
“You were thinking,” he states obviously.  
  
  
“I was,” _and I still am_. Changbin had zero reasons to deny.  
  
  
“About?”  
  
  
Kim Seungmin is truly the sky that bears the stars, the moon, the galaxies; the universe.  
  
  
(Also the only one that could bear Changbin’s antics. Oh, and his heart, he knew for sure that Seungmin had taken it out of him and kept it with him. Not that he minds, _please keep it forever_.)  
  
  
Changbin finishes his thoughts, nodding unconsciously as if he was satisfied with the unspoken closure. Even if everyone denies it, heck— even if _Seungmin_ denies it, it _is_ true for him.  
  
  
“You,” Changbin replied faster before his pulse could beat a full rhythm. Seungmin sighs unbelievably, a smirk forming.  
  
  
“Of course,” he replies, “it seems that I live in your head rent free.”  
  
  
Changbin hums, commissures lifting up. _Kim Seungmin is the skies, and he is mine_.  
  
  
“ _Kiss me_ ,” Changbin says, repeating what he wants in the first place, pressing on each syllable since he needs to observe the feeling of his lips on Seungmin’s _again_ , for his empirical ‘ _Seungmin data_ ’. Oh, you know, scientific research only. “Please?”  
  
  
Seungmin smiles, _cute_.  
  
  
There were no more words uttered and hypothesis thought out when the sky gravitates down and collides with the ocean.

  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  


**_11.22.02 :_ ** **_  
_ ** **_SPHERE_ **

  
“Min, you want ice cream?”  
  
  
“Hyung, it’s -2 degrees,” Seungmin replies, only his face visible through all the blankets wrapped around him. “I don’t want to catch a cold?”  
  
  
Changbin laughs seeing his current state. “Ice cream is better in winter though,” Changbin placed the tube on the counter, quickly grabbing a spoon for his Almond Chocolate Cookies ice cream.  
  
  
Seungmin only eyes him as the older shoves a spoonful into his mouth. Changbin, feeling the gaze, eyes him back while still munching on his _meal_. “What? It’s true,”  
  
  
Seungmin hums, Changbin’s statement wasn’t even on his mind. He was just— _cheeks_. Cheeks that maybe (or maybe not) he wants to kiss and squish.  
  
  
“Ice cream in winter can really warm up your body! I have a whole explanation for this,” Changbin exclaims, scooping another mouthful. Seungmin just stares, _of course, you have_. The younger had heard it multiple times and though he can not recite it, he remembered vaguely how the concept goes. Somehow Changbin has told him many, many, interesting ‘daily’ things in science every chance he gets.  
  
  
Seo Changbin is really forthright but is also a very complex concept at the same time. Seungmin had learned. He _learned_ , but he still feels hungry and foolish when it comes to Changbin.  
  
  
“I know,” he answers, hugging the blankets around him tighter.  
  
  
“So you don’t want to hear it?” Changbin stands up and walks over where Seungmin is, still with his almond ice cream.  
  
  
“No,” Changbin chuckles, “I’d rather you warm me up by cuddling me right now.”  
  
  
The older’s face beams as he jogs like a little kid and throws himself on—yes, ON—Seungmin, making the ‘Seungmin burrito’ tumble down. “Hyung!”  
  
  
“Minnie is cold? Hyung will help you!”  
  
  
You see, he could be a simple linear equation and somehow turn into a hyperbolic partial differential equation (?Seungmin has no idea what that is, he’d heard his hyung said it once). He gazes at Changbin trying to sit on top of his burrito-self. He can’t even get pissed right now, not when Changbin smiles brightly, speaking cutely with eyes gleaming. There’s sunlight peeking out those orbs, through the leisurely shifting waves.  
  
  
Ah, he could feel the summer heat and the salty breeze on his tongue. It doesn’t seem like -2 degrees anymore but rather 30 degrees.  
  
  
Seo Changbin is the ocean.  
  
  
The thought had crossed one summer night. They’d gone to the beach and the feeling of kissing Changbin somehow resembles the motion of waves hitting him square on the face, the water swallowing him whole. It made Seungmin think..., and realized that he really resembles the ocean. Every layer conveying distinct blues and its wonders down to the seabed.  
  
  
The ocean. A stunning place along with its cryptic aura. Seungmin remembers their first encounter, and he cannot deny that Changbin is beautiful, there’s something about him that’s pulling—you’d want to look at him a little longer (courtesy of Kim Seungmin). Yet it’s indisputable that there’s an underlying chill within him—intimidating.  
  
_  
Like the ocean_. _Huge, stunning, and intimidating_. Changbin didn’t fill in the first criteria in terms of height since he’s pocket-sized ( _“I am not pocket-sized!”_ ), but his character and thoughts... they’re wide. Seungmin thinks of back then.  
  
  
How Changbin held out his hand and smiled, turns out maybe he’s not as scary as Seungmin had speculated. When their hand touched, it reminds him of the times his family would go to the beach every summer—the first feeling you'd get when your skin touches the water with the sun staring down at you.  
  
  
Seungmin learned this is the layer where the sunlight still reaches below the saltwater, the one that Changbin always wears around everyone. Where you dip your feet down the water and the coral reefs and scaled fish are still visible to the eyes.  
  
  
“Min?” Changbin cuts his thoughts off. He helped Seungmin sit up again and slipped inside the blankets around Seungmin, _still with his ice cream_.  
  
  
“Hyung.”  
  
  
“Yea — ?”  
  
  
The younger didn’t let him finish as he closed the void within their mouths. Softly, as Seungmin’s right hand found its way quietly to cup Changbin’s face. Thumb grazing the skin cautiously. There were too many spaces scattered around them, Seungmin just wanted Changbin close. When the skies fall, its waves steadily bound home, caressing his skin gently while erupting thousands of fever simultaneously.  
  
  
Seo Changbin has layers, and the one that everyone knows lies here. Epipelagic, the first 656 feet, on calm waters where the waves dance in a tandem way, and the sun rays flutter playing hide and seek. Or on a stormy day where the water mocks you, where the dark clouds engulf the bay, and the gales tossing you harshly splitting the wind.  
  
  
  
(“Hm,” Seungmin hums, his mind is filled with blue, summer, and almond chocolate cookies.  
  
  
  
But, that is not all of it. Changbin is full of surprises and he keeps so much more than what is seen. Dive deeper, and you’d find the sunlight runs farther, the space grows darker, and the degrees drop lower. Here, a different layer lays. The twilight zone, mesopelagic, 3,281 feet. Seungmin knows nothing about the ocean nor has he _actually_ dive that deep.  
  
But Changbin’s thoughts are wide, as stated, and Seungmin’s always been there to dive and listen, so he can grasp another part of Changbin, that he himself showed willingly to Seungmin.  
  
  
3,281 feet beneath, 14 times the pressure, is probably how the description of Changbin’s touch in Seungmin’s dictionary. Bathypelagic; the water crushing himself in the most blissful type of way, the eternal incoherent whisperings casting a spell on him. Seungmin can float forever in this darkness because there’s Sirius boiling in his veins when Changbin holds him close.  
  
(Changbin pulls away, taking a big inhale with his pink dusted cheeks and slightly swollen lips. Seungmin only smiles and buried his face on the older’s shoulder (to hide his equally dazed out look).)  
  
  
Lower, and you’ll hit the floor of the abyss. It’s scary, how the ocean could keep such secrets, and Changbin does exactly just that. Which _Seungmin learned_ , he tries to understand as much as there is, how no light glazes at all when you lay on the silt of the ocean bed.  
  
  
Falling into pieces you’re not meant for, swept away from where you’d like to be. Freezing without being frozen, sinking as the thoughts consumed every living cell in your body and left you with nothing but heaviness.  
  
  
Submerging, and falling back into a deep sleep.  
  
  
Seungmin would hold Changbin’s hand through the nothingness. Until they amble again to the silvery blue surface. No matter what.  
  
  
No matter what days is it, welcoming or vengeful, the sea sails the vessel. The sun-kissed wood that never tethered on the shore, for the sea is where it's supposed to be.  
  
  
As he sailed past the coastal bay, Seungmin thought that it’s alright. For him to spend the rest of his life in the blue ocean. _Blue, blue, blue, blue._ He’d liked the color way long back, but maybe Changbin makes him love blue so much more.  
  
  
_You are my ocean. To you, I’m willing to drown myself in your shades of blue_.  
  
  
  
(“Min? Still cold?”)  
  
  
  
_The tip of your bright blue, blinding unforgivingly as I dive deeper to meet your darker blue, the tides of your emotions, your raging passion, your surprising enigma that leads me to swim until I fall in love with how your flow fully drench my skin._  
  
  
  
(“Hm? Should I get more blankets? Heater?”)  
  
  
  
That’s when Seungmin begins to understand why he was willing to hold his breath in the cold water. So he can be in the ocean’s hold a little longer. No oxygen intake matters as he breathlessly falls in love with the blue.  
  
  
  
(“Minnie??? Sleepy?”)  
  
  
  
Seungmin brings his head back up and rests his forehead on Changbin, thousands of words scattering through his mind, ( _you are my ocean, and in every layer of your blue, breathlessly I fall in love_ ) but what slips out his tongue was, “you taste almondy.”  
  
  
Changbin processes the answer for two seconds before laughing, “is this your excuse to eat the ice cream without actually eating it?”  
  
  
Seungmin shrugs, that was not it but Changbin doesn’t need to know. “Maybe. Give me another kiss.”  
  
  
Changbin shoves another spoon of ice cream with a smirk never leaving his face. “Okay! I’ll help you eat the ice cream!”  
  
  
_As he sailed past the coastal bay, Seungmin thought that it’s alright._ He can sail forever on the rippling blue, singing songs as he fades into the endless point, for he is anchored.

His love, his life, his hope... his ocean.

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  


**_11.22.03 :_ ** **_  
_ ** **_AFTERPIECE_ **

  
  
  


“Kiss me.”  
  
  
The tides rise as though the moon had turned full, _and maybe_ the clouds just wanted a kiss from the ocean.  
  
  
It’s Changbin’s turn to smile, the flowers had somehow bloomed past the severe wintertide. This explained how Seungmin is somehow akin to those Magnolia flowers blossoming in the expanse sky he’d seen today. “ _Kiss me, huh?_ ” He asks tauntingly. There’s a slight amusement in his eyes when Seungmin sticks out his bottom lip more, one thing that would make Changbin hang the stars for him ( _“Stop that or I’m gonna kiss you,”_ ).  
  
  
“Yes,” Seungmin replies, cheeks dusting pink ( _ah, Magnolia_ ). It reminds him of those times when they stayed up to wait for the sunrise; Changbin cannot make up if he was blushing or if it was just the red light kissing his skin. Seungmin is beautiful, regardless. “Kiss me, hyung.”  
  
  
“Okay,” Changbin smiles. This feels like a repeat of months ago.  
  
  
Seungmin’s fingers sneak into his, intertwining the thread of soft, warm flesh until it’s intertwisted in one another. He can taste the salt in his blood, like seawater coursing through the twisted avenues that keep him breathing despite submerging.  
  
  
Seungmin’s mass pulls Changbin in for more when he retrieves away from his lips. Changbin avows that it was just the natural law of it. He didn’t expect Seungmin to kiss the back of his hand down to his wrists, this wasn’t what he expected (!!!), okay.  
  
  
“Ocean,” Seungmin murmurs, half-lidded eyes boring into Changbin’s wide one.  
  
  
_I kiss your wrists and taste the ocean. We fall into bed and crash together like waves._ _  
__  
  
_“U-uh, what?” He doesn’t know why he gets flustered so easily by the small act. Did he zone out too long when Seungmin had said something about the ocean? (no he didn’t) The older slightly panics, then forgetting it in .5 second when Seungmin joins their lips again. _This kid seriously does what he wants to do._ _  
_  
  
“Ocean,” Seungmin says, the word muffled against his lips. Changbin hums _brokenly_ , he doesn’t catch what the younger is saying as the feeling of his lips on Changbin’s got him intoxicated (as if he wasn’t already, _every damn second_ ) and now _the_ words, the breath, the heat, every shooting star keeping his nerves awake and out of it concurrently.  
  
  
It didn’t help when he felt the outline of Seungmin’s lips lift up, small glittering diamonds eloping themselves in the sky before they shoot and fall into soft whispers and wondrous cadence to pray under. Changbin is drunk past the eclipse and Seungmin wouldn’t mind to just shrunk between Scylla and Charybdis.  
  
  
Changbin surges to the sky, Seungmin cuts his strings to plunge into the ocean.  
  
  
The sea wants to rise, and the sky wants to sink. All of its life, the sea wished for wings while the sky wished for fins.  
  
  
None of them ever gets it.  
  
  
Instead, they were given _a line_.  
  
  
Do you know the line between the sky and the sea? The line that separates them yet also where they meet through one’s field of view. The line of equals where they dance and relentlessly pass Ilios to one another.  
  
  
But _what_ is the line? What is it that we see?  
  
  
If we are surrounded by what we can see, does what we see equals what we are? Then an entity is a perception of opposition and time is the persistence of the antithesis.  
  
  
(Seungmin’s hair tickles his chin, his lips wander down his neck and Changbin doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry in bliss. “Seungmin,” so Changbin does the combination of both and Seungmin laughs in joy.  
  
  
The clouds dance cheekily as the waves bump into each other, _sweet_.)  
  
  
Was it you? The mirror of my equal? Twin Ribbons of energy traveling through plasmas that unites us. Was it you? Was it fate? Was it coincidence?  
  
  
Fortuity nor inevitability can cover it. It was never about them.  
  
  
_I think I get it_ , the line, the in-between. Mirror. Equal. Resemblance.  
  
  
My equal, you are. Your equal, I am. Do you see?  
  
  
Equal means _you are_ , and _you see_ so _I am_.  
  
  
And _you are_ , you see, the _I am_.  
  
  
  
  
(“I love you.”  
  
“Equal,” lips are once again tangled in-between the blues, “I love you too.”)

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY ~LINO~  
> i cant believe im posting a non lino related fic on his birthday 😭😭pls spare me king I hope he's having the Most Bestest day 
> 
> I have been working on this fic for 10 months...wow,. i started this January and got caught up with it so bad, that i did not write anything else besides this jsjdh bc I want to finish it quickly but also?? i want it to bedecent enough for myself at least when I read it ??!~>?!, I HOPE ITS NOT CRINGY ;;-;;
> 
> and after 10 months!! its done ;;-;;; this is really a fic that I treasure a lot so thank you if you have reached the bottom of this aaaaa
> 
> a feedback is always appreciated ~! hope you have a good day <3 LINO BEST BOY


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